Fifty students from secondary schools across Greater Manchester learned life-saving heart health skills yesterday (Wednesday 16th October) thanks to an event run by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) in recognition of World Restart a Heart Day.
The ‘Your Heart Hospital’ event brought together experts from two of the North West’s leading Heart Centres: Wythenshawe Hospital and Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI), to help students understand the causes, prevention and treatment of heart disease, hear about what happens in a heart attack centre and to learn practical resuscitation skills including cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
Organised by MFT in partnership with colleagues at Harefield Hospital and the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS), the experience was hosted by Dr Cara Hendry, Consultant Interventional Cardiologist; with a telecast by Professor Simon Ray, Consultant Cardiologist and President of BCS.
The full-day event, which took place at Wythenshawe Hospital, included talks by a series of Cardiology Consultants and Paramedics on understanding, preventing and treating a number of heart problems, as well as practical sessions to teach students real-life emergency resuscitation skills. It also included career surgeries to help students find out how they can get started on a career in the NHS.
Year 9 and 10 students from five Greater Manchester schools attended. These were Manchester Enterprise Academy, Levenshulme High School, Flixton Girls School, Stockport Grammar School and Chorlton High School.
MFT is one of the largest NHS Trusts in the country, managing nine hospitals in Greater Manchester including MRI and Wythenshawe Hospital.
Thanks to the work being done by experts across these sites, MFT is a UK leader for cardiac care, and provides life-saving cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology services including coronary bypass surgery valve operations, transplant, and artificial heart surgery.
Dr Cara Hendry said: “We’re thrilled to welcome students from around the region to Wythenshawe Hospital to learn some vital skills. Everyone knows how crucial heart health is, but far fewer are aware of how to identify cardiac arrest and administer CPR which is literally lifesaving. We’re hoping to change that.”
“Learning resuscitation is really important, and can make every difference in an emergency situation. After today our students will have learnt the skills to potentially save a life one day.”
Professor Simon Ray said “Today is a fantastic opportunity for these students to not only learn some important skills, but also to find out about the work we at MFT’s heart centres do every day. Hopefully after today we’ll have helped to inspire a new generation of budding cardiologists.”
World Restart a Heart Day is an internationally recognised initiative that aims to facilitate Basic Life Support (BLS) courses and create awareness that everyone can learn CPR.